Okinawa_ The Last Battle Of World War II Part 1

Okinawa_ The Last Battle of World War II.

by Robert Leckie.

Why Okinawa?

CHAPTER ONE.

On September 29, 1944, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Ocean Area (POA), and Fleet Admiral Ernest King, chief of U.S. Naval Operations, conferred in San Francisco on the next steps to be taken to deliver the final crusher to a staggering j.a.pan. This was the conference's stated purpose, but the unspoken objective was to persuade the irascible, often-inflexible King to accept Nimitz's battle plan, instead of King's own.

This would not be easy, for the tall, lean, hard, humorless King was known to be "so tough he shaves with a blowtorch." Indeed, his civilian chief, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, had ordered from Tiffany's a silver miniature blowtorch with that inscription on it. Thus, there was some trepidation among Nimitz and his Army chiefs-Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner of Army Ground Forces (POA) and Lieutenant General Millard Harmon of the newly formed Army Air Forces (POA)-as well as Admiral Raymond Spruance, alternate chief with Fleet Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, of Nimitz's battle fleet.1 They knew that King was convinced the next operation in the Pacific should be landings on the big island of Formosa off the Chinese southeastern coast. If Nimitz and staff could persuade King to accept General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur's plan to invade Luzon in the Philippines rather than Formosa, the conference would end in a rare and high note of interservice cooperation. They knew that King was convinced the next operation in the Pacific should be landings on the big island of Formosa off the Chinese southeastern coast. If Nimitz and staff could persuade King to accept General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur's plan to invade Luzon in the Philippines rather than Formosa, the conference would end in a rare and high note of interservice cooperation.

Each of the conferees was a.s.signed a luxurious suite in the elegant Saint Francis Hotel, a.s.sembling in Admiral King's opulent quarters for three days of discussions. Here they were served epicurean meals that were not often to be found on the menu in the Saint Francis dining rooms (wartime rationing then being in effect). Here also-and sometimes in the plainer Sea Frontier headquarters, where maps and logistic tables were more readily available-Nimitz presented his chief with one of those carefully drawn memoranda for which he was justly celebrated. With an outward calm and precision that did not reflect his inner apprehension, the pink-cheeked, white-haired, baby-faced Nimitz was careful not to provoke the stern-faced, short-fused Admiral "Adamant" while he explained exactly why King's cherished invasion of Formosa would be impossible to mount at that time.

First, defending that huge island now known as Taiwan, the j.a.panese had a full field army much too strong to be attacked by American forces then available in the Pacific, a point vigorously supported by both Buckner and Harmon.

Second, the casualty estimate, based upon U.S. losses of 17,000 dead and wounded while eliminating 32,000 dug-in j.a.panese on the island of Saipan, would reach at least 150,000 or more, a slaughter that POA's resources could not bear and the American public would never supinely accept. Conversely, MacArthur-always ready and happy to predict minimal losses in any of his own operations-had estimated Luzon could be taken with comparatively moderate casualties.

Throughout this recital Ernest King's face remained stony. It is possible-though not reported anywhere-that at the introduction of the name of Douglas MacArthur, one of the admiral's eyelids might have flickered. But Nimitz was prepared for this moment, for he had long ago learned that you cannot take without giving, and Nimitz would give with an alternative to King's cherished plan. He suggested to his chief that if he acquiesced in MacArthur's liberation of Luzon and recapture of Manila, these victories would clear the Pacific for the direct invasion of j.a.pan's home islands by seizing Iwo Jima and Okinawa and using them as staging areas. King's eyebrows rose as Nimitz continued: this would completely sever j.a.pan from her oil sources in Borneo, Sumatra, and Burma, and without this lifeblood of war her fleets could not sail, her airplanes fly, her vehicles roll, or her industries produce. Equally satisfying, from Okinawa and Iwo the giant B-29s or Superforts could intensify their bombardment of j.a.pan proper and might conceivably even bomb Nippon into submission without the necessity of invading her home islands.

Admiral King listened intently to Nimitz's recital, shooting out tough, incisive questions. He admitted that he had read a Joint Chiefs' report questioning the feasibility of a Formosa invasion, although he did wonder openly about the wisdom of hitting Iwo only 760 miles from j.a.pan and within the Prefecture of Tokyo itself. Turning to Admiral Spruance, who three months earlier had informed the Navy chief that he favored attacking Okinawa, he asked: "Haven't you something to say? I thought that Okinawa was your baby." Never a man to allow himself to be caught between the upper and nether millstones of command, Spruance replied that he thought his direct superior-Nimitz-had summarized the situation nicely, and he had nothing to add.

To the Nimitz team's gratified surprise, Admiral Adamant graciously agreed to subst.i.tute Iwo and Okinawa for his cherished Formosa plan, even though that meant he must put his eagerness to help China on hold. It might have been that Nimitz's proposal was attractive to him because it delayed the politically explosive question of who would be the Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific: Nimitz or MacArthur? For years Douglas MacArthur had actively sought that eminence, almost insanely jealous as he was of the t.i.tle Supreme Allied Commander, European Theater, held by his "former clerk," Dwight Eisenhower. To that end he had cultivated the support of powerful politicians and the conservative stateside press, desisting only when an exasperated Franklin Delano Roosevelt informed him that if the Pacific were to have a Supreme Commander, it would be Nimitz. This way, King may have reasoned, his decision-bound to be popular with neither side in the abrasive Army-Navy rivalry of World War II-could be delayed until the actual invasion of j.a.pan, if there were such an operation, for both Nimitz and King dreaded the fearful carnage, both American and j.a.panese, that might occur if it were attempted. As sailors they understood perhaps better than the always-optimistic soldier MacArthur the terrible consequences if such a gigantic amphibious operation were to fail.

So the conference in San Francisco ended on a happy note, with King returning to Was.h.i.+ngton to report his approval to his comrades on the Joint Chiefs, and Nimitz with his flag officers going back to Hawaii to plan for the new operations and especially for Iwo and Iceberg Iceberg, the code name for Okinawa.

Okinawa lies at the midpoint of the Ryukyu Islands2 and almost between Formosa (Taiwan), 500 nautical miles to the southwest, and Kyushu, 375 miles to the north. and almost between Formosa (Taiwan), 500 nautical miles to the southwest, and Kyushu, 375 miles to the north.

In ancient times Okinawa was a dependency of China, paying an annual tribute to the Imperial Court at Peking. The group of islands was called Liu-chi'u Liu-chi'u, the Chinese word usually p.r.o.nounced "Loo Choo," meaning either "pendant ball" or "bubbles floating on water"; but after annexation by j.a.pan in 1879, their new lords, who have great difficulty p.r.o.nouncing the "L" sound, changed their name to Ryukyu.

These islands lie southwest of j.a.pan proper, northeast of Formosa and the Philippines, and west of the Bonins, which include Iwo Jima. Peaks of drowned mountains, they stretch in an arc about 790 miles long between Kyushu and Formosa. Approximately in the center of the arc is the Okinawa Group of some fifty islands cl.u.s.tering around the largest of them, Okinawa: 60 miles long (running generally north to south), from 2 to 18 miles wide, and covering 485 square miles. Obviously such a base so close to j.a.pan, able to support dozens of airfields, as well as dozens of divisions together with all manner of wars.h.i.+ps anch.o.r.ed either in the enormous Hagus.h.i.+ Anchorage off the west coast or the equally valuable Nakagusuku Bay off the southeast sh.o.r.e, would be almost "another England"-the staging area for the Allied invasion of Europe-for the waterborne attack upon j.a.pan.

In 1945 Okinawa had a population of about five hundred thousand, of whom roughly 60 percent lived in the southern third, much more amenable than the rugged and mountainous north above the two-mile-wide Isthmus of Is.h.i.+kawa.

Originally, Okinawans resembled j.a.panese, but an influx of Malay, Chinese, Mongol, and other races left them smaller and fuller of face than their new masters from the north. They were also among the most docile people in the world. They had no history of war, neither making nor carrying arms. (When a traveler informed Napoleon of this fact, the Corsican conqueror was indignant.) Although Jesus, Allah, and Confucius had been to Okinawa, their missionaries persuaded few if any natives to renounce their primitive animist religion based on a mystical reverence for fire and hearth and wors.h.i.+p of the bones of their ancestors. These were placed in urns kept inside fairly large lyre-shaped tombs, which the j.a.panese, with their customary indifference to the feelings of any race but their own, began to fortify with machine guns and cannon at the outbreak of the war. Okinawan standards of living were low, and the j.a.panese made no attempt to raise them.

Generally the haughty Nipponese despised the Okinawans as inferior people and were content to regard them as hewers of wood and drawers of water, useful with their small-scale farms to supply them-and eventually their troops-with sugarcane, sweet potatoes, rice, and soybeans. Aside from teachers trained in j.a.pan, almost all Okinawans-like the Amerindians of America-had no desire to enjoy the blessings of industrial society, but were content to live as their ancestors had lived in tiny villages of about one hundred people or towns numbering one thousand. Although the j.a.panese, for all of their contempt for them, had drafted many young Okinawan males into their militia, on the whole j.a.panese troops in the Great Loo Choo were hated with a quiet and sullen resentment similar to the att.i.tude of the early American colonists toward the British redcoats quartered in their homes. Although the j.a.panese and Okinawan languages are alike, neither is intelligible to the other race.

The southern third of the island below Is.h.i.+kawa, where most of the fighting would rage, is rolling, hilly country lower than the mountainous, jumbled North, but actually much easier to defend. Steep, natural escarpments, ravines, and terraces-as well as ridges abounding in natural caves-were generally aligned east and west across the island. This meant that an attacking force must engage in the most difficult warfare: "cross-hatch" fighting. There were no north-south ridges with river valleys or pa.s.ses through which troops might move easily. Thus, moving south, the Americans would encounter a succession of these heavily fortified east-west ridges, and each time one fell, a new one would have to be a.s.saulted.

The only two-way decent road in the South was in the Naha-Shuri area: Naha, the new port and commercial center; Shuri, the capital of the ancient Okinawa kings. Even these were impa.s.sable during the torrential rains that regularly turned the entire island, except for the limestone ridges, into a sea of mud-for the skies of the Great Loo Choo were capable of pouring out eleven inches of rainfall in a single day.

Just as inimical to health or endurance was an enervating humidity unrivaled even by Eritrea or the Belgian Congo, and the best description of the country lanes over which a modern, mechanized army would have to travel is an American soldier's wry comment: "Okinawa had an excellent network of bad roads."

Shuri Castle was the point of Okinawa's defensive arrowhead. It lay on high ground overlooking Naha to the east (or right, as it would face the American invaders). Beneath it an ancient cave system was being extended and strengthened to provide a completely safe bomb- and sh.e.l.l-proof headquarters for the j.a.panese Thirty-second Army. Heavy guns emplaced nearby could bombard any part of southern Okinawa. If the Americans, in spite of heavy losses, were able to penetrate Shuri's outer defenses, the defending j.a.panese could withdraw toward the center. So long as Shuri remained unconquered, so did Okinawa.

These fortifications resembled the blood-soaked caves and fissures of Peleliu, a drowned coral mountain that had heaved itself above the sea. But Okinawa's were man-made; its soft coral and limestone could be grubbed up with pick and shovel, and small natural caves expanded to hold as many men as a company of two hundred or more. The fill thus removed was eminently useful in building barricades that, when soaked with water and baked by the sun, were almost as hard as concrete. But Peleliu was only six miles long by two miles wide, while southern Okinawa was about twenty miles long and in some places eighteen miles wide.

This, then, was the terrible fortified terrain that would confront the Americans when they came storming ash.o.r.e in the spring of 1945. Even worse-for the seamen of the U.S. Navy, at least-would be the j.a.panese new weapon of the kamikaze. kamikaze.

j.a.pan at Bay

CHAPTER TWO.

No one-and especially not the members of j.a.panese Imperial General Headquarters or the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff-expected Okinawa to be the last battle of World War II. Why the surprise? The Joint Chiefs, having woefully underestimated enemy striking power at the beginning of the Pacific War, had just as grievously exaggerated it at the end.

Actually, as some perceptive Okinawans were already privately a.s.suring each other: "Nippon ga maketa. "Nippon ga maketa. j.a.pan is finished." In early 1945, after the conquest of Iwo Jima by three Marine divisions, the island nation so vulnerable to aerial and submarine warfare had been almost completely severed from its stolen Pacific empire in "the land of eternal summer." Leyte in the Philippines had been a.s.saulted the previous October by an American amphibious force under General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur, and in the same month the U.S. Navy had destroyed the remnants of the once-proud j.a.panese Navy in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On January 9, Luzon in the Philippines was invaded, and on February 16-17, like a "typhoon of steel," the fast carriers of the U.S. Navy launched the first naval air raids on Tokyo Bay. A week later Manila was overrun by those American "devils in baggy pants." In late March Iwo fell to three Marine divisions in the bloodiest battle in the annals of American arms. Not only was Old Glory enshrined forever in American military history by the historic flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi, but more important strategically and more dreadful for j.a.panese fears was the capture of this insignificant little speck of black volcanic ash-a cinder clog, 4 miles long and 2 miles wide-for it guaranteed that the devastating raids on j.a.pan by the new giant B-29 U.S. Army Air Force bombers would continue and even rise in fury. j.a.pan is finished." In early 1945, after the conquest of Iwo Jima by three Marine divisions, the island nation so vulnerable to aerial and submarine warfare had been almost completely severed from its stolen Pacific empire in "the land of eternal summer." Leyte in the Philippines had been a.s.saulted the previous October by an American amphibious force under General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur, and in the same month the U.S. Navy had destroyed the remnants of the once-proud j.a.panese Navy in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On January 9, Luzon in the Philippines was invaded, and on February 16-17, like a "typhoon of steel," the fast carriers of the U.S. Navy launched the first naval air raids on Tokyo Bay. A week later Manila was overrun by those American "devils in baggy pants." In late March Iwo fell to three Marine divisions in the bloodiest battle in the annals of American arms. Not only was Old Glory enshrined forever in American military history by the historic flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi, but more important strategically and more dreadful for j.a.panese fears was the capture of this insignificant little speck of black volcanic ash-a cinder clog, 4 miles long and 2 miles wide-for it guaranteed that the devastating raids on j.a.pan by the new giant B-29 U.S. Army Air Force bombers would continue and even rise in fury.

Iwo became a base from which the Superforts could fly closer to the j.a.panese capital undetected and under protection of Iwo-based American fighter planes. Perhaps even more welcome to these gallant airmen, crippled B-29s unable to make the fifteen-hundred-mile flight back to Saipan could now touch down safely on tiny Iwo; or if shot down off the sh.o.r.es of Nippon, could even be reached by Iwo-based Dumbo rescue planes. Thus, not only could these exorbitantly expensive aerial elephants be saved, but their truly more valuable crews as well. On the night of March 9, to prove their worth and sound the requiem of the "unconquerable" island empire, the Superforts already striking Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe in pulverizing three-hundred-plane raids came down to six thousand feet over Tokyo to loose the dreadful firebombs that consumed a quarter of a million houses and made a million human beings homeless while killing 83,800 people in the most lethal air raid in history-even exceeding the death and destruction of the atomic-bomb strikes on Hiros.h.i.+ma and Nagasaki that were to follow.

Meanwhile the huge j.a.panese merchant fleet, employed in carrying vital oil and valuable minerals to the headquarters of an empire singularly devoid of natural resources, had been steadily blasted into extinction by the flas.h.i.+ng torpedoes of the United States Navy's submarines. Here indeed were the unsung heroes of the splendid Pacific sea charge of three years' duration: four thousand miles from Pearl Harbor to the reef-rimmed slender long island of Okinawa. These men of "the silent service," as it was called, were fond of joking about how they had divided the Pacific between the enemy and themselves, conferring on j.a.pan "the bottom half." In fact it was true. Only an occasional supply s.h.i.+p or transport arrived at or departed Nippon's numerous sea-ports, themselves silent, ghostly shambles. Incredibly, the American submarines, now out of sea targets, had penetrated j.a.pan's inland seas to begin the systematic destruction of its ferry traffic. Transportation on the four Home Islands of Honshu, s.h.i.+koku, Kyushu, and Hokkaido was at a standstill. Little was moved: by road or rail, over the water or through the air. In the Imperial Palace hissing, bowing members of the household staff kept from Emperor Hirohito the shocking, grisly protests arriving in the daily mail: the index fingers of j.a.panese fathers who had lost too many sons to "the red-haired barbarians." Most of these doubters-silent and anonymous because they feared a visit from the War Lords' dreaded Thought Police-were men who had lived and worked in America, knowing it for the unrivaled industrial giant that it was. They did not share the general jubilation when "the emperor's glorious young eagles" arrived home from Pearl Harbor. Their hearts were filled with trepidation, with secret dread for the retribution that they knew would overtake their beloved country.

For eight months following Pearl Harbor, the victory fever had raged unchecked in j.a.pan. During that time the striking power of America's Pacific Fleet had rolled with the tide on the floor of Battles.h.i.+p Row. Wake had fallen, Guam, the Philippines. The Rising Sun flew above the Dutch East Indies, it surmounted the French tricolor in Indochina, blotting out the Union Jack in Singapore, where columns of short tan men in mushroom helmets double-timed through silent streets. Burma and Malaya were also j.a.panese. India's hundreds of millions were imperiled, great China was all but isolated from the world, Australia looked fearfully north to j.a.panese bases on New Guinea, toward the long double chain of the Solomon Islands drawn like two knives across its lifeline to America. But then, on August 7, 1942-exactly eight months after Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagomo had turned his aircraft carriers into the wind off Pearl Harbor-the American Marines landed on Guadalca.n.a.l and the counter-offensive had begun.

In j.a.pan the war dance turned gradually into a dirge while doleful drums beat a requiem of retreat and defeat. Smiling j.a.panese mothers no longer strolled along the streets of j.a.panese towns and cities, grasping their "belts of a thousand st.i.tches," entreating pa.s.sersby to sew a st.i.tch into these magical charms to be worn into battle by their soldier sons. For now those youths lay buried on faraway islands where admirals and generals-like the Melanesian or Micronesian natives whom they despised-es-caped starvation by cultivating their own vegetable gardens of yams and sweet potatoes. And the belts that had failed to preserve the lives of the boys who wore them became battle souvenirs second only to the Samurai Samurai sabers of their fallen officers. sabers of their fallen officers.

This, then, was the j.a.pan that the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff still considered a formidable foe, so much so that it could be subdued only by an invasion force of a million men and thousands of s.h.i.+ps, airplanes, and tanks. To achieve final victory, Okinawa was to be seized as a forward base for this enormous invading armada. In the fall of 1945 a three-p.r.o.nged amphibious a.s.sault called Operation Olympic Olympic was to be mounted against southern Kyushu by the Sixth U.S. Army consisting of ten infantry divisions and three spearheading Marine divisions. This was to be followed in the spring of 1946 by Operation was to be mounted against southern Kyushu by the Sixth U.S. Army consisting of ten infantry divisions and three spearheading Marine divisions. This was to be followed in the spring of 1946 by Operation Coronet, Coronet, a ma.s.sive seaborne a.s.sault on the Tokyo Plain by the Eighth and Tenth Armies, spearheaded by another amphibious force of three Marine divisions and with the First Army transs.h.i.+pped from Europe to form a ten-division reserve. The entire operation would be under the command of General of the Armies MacArthur and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. a ma.s.sive seaborne a.s.sault on the Tokyo Plain by the Eighth and Tenth Armies, spearheaded by another amphibious force of three Marine divisions and with the First Army transs.h.i.+pped from Europe to form a ten-division reserve. The entire operation would be under the command of General of the Armies MacArthur and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Okinawa would be the catapult from which this mightiest amphibious a.s.sault force ever a.s.sembled would be hurled.

The Divine Wind

CHAPTER THREE.

j.a.panese Imperial Headquarters, still refusing to believe that Nippon was beaten, still writing reports while wearing rose-colored gla.s.ses, also antic.i.p.ated an inevitable and b.l.o.o.d.y fight for Okinawa as the prelude to a t.i.tanic struggle for j.a.pan itself. While the American Joint Chiefs regarded Operation Iceberg Iceberg as one more stepping-stone toward j.a.pan, their enemy saw it as the anvil on which the hammer blows of a still-invincible j.a.pan would destroy the American fleet. as one more stepping-stone toward j.a.pan, their enemy saw it as the anvil on which the hammer blows of a still-invincible j.a.pan would destroy the American fleet.

Destruction of American sea power remained the chief objective of j.a.panese military policy. Sea power had brought the Americans through the island barriers that Imperial Headquarters had thought to be impenetrable, had landed them at Iwo within the very Prefecture of Tokyo, and now threatened to provide them a lodgment 385 miles closer to the Home Islands. Only sea power could make possible the invasion of j.a.pan, something that had not happened in three thousand years of j.a.pan's recorded history-something that had been attempted only twice before.

In 1274 and 1281 Kublai Khan, grandson of the great Genghis Khan and Mongol emperor of China, ma.s.sed huge invasion fleets on the Chinese coast for that purpose. j.a.pan was unprepared to repel such stupendous armadas, but a kamikaze, kamikaze, or "Divine Wind"-actually a typhoon-struck both Mongol fleets, scattering and sinking them. or "Divine Wind"-actually a typhoon-struck both Mongol fleets, scattering and sinking them.

In early 1945, nearly seven centuries later, an entire host of Divine Winds came howling out of Nippon. They were the suicide bombers of the Special Attack Forces, the new kamikaze kamikaze who had been so named because it was seriously believed that they too would destroy another invasion fleet. who had been so named because it was seriously believed that they too would destroy another invasion fleet.

They were the conception of Vice Admiral Takejiro Onis.h.i.+. He had led a carrier group during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. After that j.a.panese aerial disaster known to the Americans as "the Marianas Turkey Shoot," Onis.h.i.+ had gone to Fleet Admiral Soemu Toyoda, commander of j.a.pan's Combined Fleet, with the proposal to organize a group of flyers who would crash-dive loaded bombers onto the decks of American wars.h.i.+ps. Toyoda agreed. Like most j.a.panese he found the concept of suicide-so popular in j.a.pan as a means of atonement for failure of any kind-a glorious method of defending the homeland. So Toyoda sent Onis.h.i.+ to the Philippines, where he began organizing kamikaze kamikaze on a local and volunteer basis. Then came the American seizure of the Palaus and the Filipino invasion. on a local and volunteer basis. Then came the American seizure of the Palaus and the Filipino invasion.

On October 15, 1944, Rear Admiral Masafumi Arima-the first kamikaze kamikaze-tried to crash-dive the American carrier Franklin. Franklin. He was shot down by Navy fighters, but j.a.panese Imperial Headquarters told the nation that he had succeeded in hitting the carrier-which he had not done-and thus "lit the fuse of the ardent wishes of his men." He was shot down by Navy fighters, but j.a.panese Imperial Headquarters told the nation that he had succeeded in hitting the carrier-which he had not done-and thus "lit the fuse of the ardent wishes of his men."

The first organized attacks of the kamikaze kamikaze came on October 25, at the beginning of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Suicide bombers struck blows strong enough to startle the Americans and make them aware of a new weapon in the field against them, but not savage enough to shatter them. Too many came on October 25, at the beginning of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Suicide bombers struck blows strong enough to startle the Americans and make them aware of a new weapon in the field against them, but not savage enough to shatter them. Too many kamikaze kamikaze missed their targets and crashed harmlessly into the ocean, too many lost their way either arriving or returning, and too many were shot down. Of 650 suiciders sent to the Philippines, only about a quarter of them scored hits-and almost exclusively on small s.h.i.+ps without the firepower to defend themselves like the cruisers, battles.h.i.+ps, and aircraft carriers. But Imperial Headquarters, still keeping the national mind carefully empty of news of failure, announced hits of almost 100 percent. Imperial Headquarters did not believe its own propaganda, of course. Its generals and admirals privately guessed hits ranging from 12 to 50 percent, but they also a.s.sumed that nothing but battles.h.i.+ps and carriers had been hit. missed their targets and crashed harmlessly into the ocean, too many lost their way either arriving or returning, and too many were shot down. Of 650 suiciders sent to the Philippines, only about a quarter of them scored hits-and almost exclusively on small s.h.i.+ps without the firepower to defend themselves like the cruisers, battles.h.i.+ps, and aircraft carriers. But Imperial Headquarters, still keeping the national mind carefully empty of news of failure, announced hits of almost 100 percent. Imperial Headquarters did not believe its own propaganda, of course. Its generals and admirals privately guessed hits ranging from 12 to 50 percent, but they also a.s.sumed that nothing but battles.h.i.+ps and carriers had been hit.

Thus was the kamikaze kamikaze born, in an outburst of national ecstasy and antic.i.p.ated deliverance. In the homeland a huge corps of suiciders was organized under Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki. By January 1945 they were part of j.a.panese military strategy, if not the dominant part. So many suiciders would be ordered out on an operation, to be joined by so many first-cla.s.s fighters and bombers: the fighters to clear the skies of enemy interceptors, the bombers to ravage American s.h.i.+pping and guide the born, in an outburst of national ecstasy and antic.i.p.ated deliverance. In the homeland a huge corps of suiciders was organized under Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki. By January 1945 they were part of j.a.panese military strategy, if not the dominant part. So many suiciders would be ordered out on an operation, to be joined by so many first-cla.s.s fighters and bombers: the fighters to clear the skies of enemy interceptors, the bombers to ravage American s.h.i.+pping and guide the kamikaze kamikaze to their victims. to their victims.

They needed to be guided because they usually were a combination of old, stripped-down aircraft and young, often hopped-up flyers. Admiral Ugaki did not use his newest planes or his most skilled pilots, as Admiral Onis.h.i.+ had in the Philippines. Ugaki considered this wasteful. He believed that the "spiritual power" of the "glorious, incomparable young eagles" would compensate for the missing firepower of obsolete crates from which even the instruments had been removed. At a period in the Pacific War when perceptive j.a.panese commanders were beginning to ridicule the "bamboo-spear tactics" of the School of Spiritual Power, as opposed to the realities of firepower, Ugaki was showering his brave young volunteers-for brave they truly were-with encomiums of praise intended to silence whatever reservations they may have had about piloting these patched-up old cripples, and also to inspire the nation.

So the suiciders were hailed as saviors: wined, dined, photographed, lionized. Many of them attended their own funerals before taking off on their last mission. Farewell feasts were held in their honor at the numerous airfields on the southernmost j.a.panese island of Kyushu. Solemn Samurai Samurai ceremonies were conducted, and many toasts of ceremonies were conducted, and many toasts of sake sake drunk, so that some of the pilots climbed aboard their airplanes on wobbly legs. It did not seem to occur to the j.a.panese-and especially Ugaki-that insobriety might affect the aim of the drunk, so that some of the pilots climbed aboard their airplanes on wobbly legs. It did not seem to occur to the j.a.panese-and especially Ugaki-that insobriety might affect the aim of the kamikaze kamikaze and thus defeat the purpose of the suicide corps; and this was because the concept of the suicide-savior had so captivated the nation from schoolgirls to Emperor Hirohito himself that the slightest word of criticism would have been regarded as treason. And it was this very deep and very real faith in another coming of a Divine Wind that dictated to the planners at Imperial Headquarters exactly how the battle of Okinawa was to be fought. and thus defeat the purpose of the suicide corps; and this was because the concept of the suicide-savior had so captivated the nation from schoolgirls to Emperor Hirohito himself that the slightest word of criticism would have been regarded as treason. And it was this very deep and very real faith in another coming of a Divine Wind that dictated to the planners at Imperial Headquarters exactly how the battle of Okinawa was to be fought.

The speed with which the Americans were overrunning the Philippines had produced a mood of the blackest pessimism at Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo in late 1944-until those roseate reports of kamikaze kamikaze success during December and January replaced the darkest despair with the brightest hopes. By 1945 Headquarters had decided that the United States would next strike at Okinawa to seize a base for the invasion of j.a.pan proper, as the four Home Islands were called. It was now believed that the success during December and January replaced the darkest despair with the brightest hopes. By 1945 Headquarters had decided that the United States would next strike at Okinawa to seize a base for the invasion of j.a.pan proper, as the four Home Islands were called. It was now believed that the kamikaze kamikaze corps could greatly improve the chances for a successful defense of Okinawa, and thus perhaps-even probably-prevent enemy landings in the Home Islands. So a plan called Ten-Go, or "Heavenly Operation," was devised. New armies were to be formed from a reserve of military-age men who had been deferred for essential labor, while a powerful air force built around the corps could greatly improve the chances for a successful defense of Okinawa, and thus perhaps-even probably-prevent enemy landings in the Home Islands. So a plan called Ten-Go, or "Heavenly Operation," was devised. New armies were to be formed from a reserve of military-age men who had been deferred for essential labor, while a powerful air force built around the kamikaze kamikaze would be organized to destroy the Americans. would be organized to destroy the Americans.

More than four thousand airplanes, both suicide and conventional, would launch an all-out attack, joined by hundreds of suicide motorboats operating from Okinawa and the Kerama Islands and followed by a suicide dash of j.a.pan's remaining wars.h.i.+ps, including the mighty battles.h.i.+p Yamato. Yamato. The air a.s.saults would come from two directions: north from Formosa where the j.a.panese Army's Eighth Air Division and the Navy's First Air Fleet were based, and south from Kyushu, with a more powerful force combining several Army and Navy commands, all under the direction of Vice Admiral Ugaki. On February 6 a joint Army-Navy Air Agreement stated: The air a.s.saults would come from two directions: north from Formosa where the j.a.panese Army's Eighth Air Division and the Navy's First Air Fleet were based, and south from Kyushu, with a more powerful force combining several Army and Navy commands, all under the direction of Vice Admiral Ugaki. On February 6 a joint Army-Navy Air Agreement stated: In general j.a.panese air strength will be conserved until an enemy landing is underway or within the defense sphere ... Primary emphasis will be laid on the speedy activation, training and ma.s.s employment of the Special Attack Forces (kamikaze) (kamikaze) ... The main target of Army aircraft will be enemy transports, and of Navy aircraft carrier attack forces. ... The main target of Army aircraft will be enemy transports, and of Navy aircraft carrier attack forces.

On its face this was a bold plan conceived in an atmosphere of the most cordial cooperation. Actually, the only leaders motivated by the same conviction were those who believed that the war could no longer be won. Otherwise, there was a deep divergence: the Navy officers seeing Ten-Go Ten-Go as the last opportunity to score a great, redeeming victory; the Army staffers in agreement that the final battle would be fought not on Okinawa but on Kyushu. Though their views conflicted, their reasoning was logical: the sailors, certain that if airpower could not stop the enemy at Okinawa, neither would it do so on Kyushu; the Army insisting that even on the Philippines the Americans had not yet fought a major j.a.panese army, and that, shattered and whittled by the suicide-saviors, they could be repulsed in j.a.pan proper. However, all-even the doubters-were convinced that at the very least a severe defeat must be inflicted on the Americans to compel the Allies to modify their demand for Unconditional Surrender. as the last opportunity to score a great, redeeming victory; the Army staffers in agreement that the final battle would be fought not on Okinawa but on Kyushu. Though their views conflicted, their reasoning was logical: the sailors, certain that if airpower could not stop the enemy at Okinawa, neither would it do so on Kyushu; the Army insisting that even on the Philippines the Americans had not yet fought a major j.a.panese army, and that, shattered and whittled by the suicide-saviors, they could be repulsed in j.a.pan proper. However, all-even the doubters-were convinced that at the very least a severe defeat must be inflicted on the Americans to compel the Allies to modify their demand for Unconditional Surrender.

There was one more consideration, probably more apparent to the Army than the Navy. Bamboo-spear tactics were out. The illogical belief that spiritual power could conquer firepower had sp.a.w.ned that other cause of j.a.pan's absolute inability to halt the American charge across the Pacific: the doctrine of destroying the enemy invaders "at the water's edge." Those nocturnal, ma.s.sed frontal attacks known as "Banzai charges" had repeatedly been broken in blood, leaving the j.a.panese defenders so weakened that they were powerless to resist. Now there was a new spirit informing the j.a.panese Army: defense in depth-as careful as the Banzai was reckless, as difficult for the enemy to overcome as the foolhardy wild Banzai had been easy for him to shatter, and so costly in the attrition of enemy men, machines, and s.h.i.+ps as to weary the Americans and thus induce them to negotiate.

Ambush, or the tactics of delay raised to a military science, began on the large island of Biak off the western extremity of New Guinea. It was conceived by Colonel Kuzume Naoyuki, commander of about eleven thousand troops of the defense garrison there. Disdainful of the doctrine of destruction at the water's edge, he decided instead to allow the Americans to come ash.o.r.e unopposed so that they would stroll unwarily into the trap he would prepare for them. This would turn the area around the vital airfield there into a martial honeycomb of caves and pillboxes-all mutually supportive-filled with riflemen, automatic weapons, artillery, batteries of mortars, and light tanks. Naoyuki also stockpiled these positions with enough ammunition, food, and water-that priceless liquid was less than abundant on Biak, where the heat and humidity would take a toll equal to enemy gunfire-to sustain his defense for months. Thus, when the 162nd Infantry of the Forty-first Division of the U.S. Army landed on Biak on May 27, 1944, they did indeed move confidently inland expecting little opposition-until they reached that vital airfield. Then, from the low-lying terrain around them and the ridges above, there fell a terrible storm of shot and sh.e.l.l that pinned them to the ground; it was not until dark that amtracks were able to extricate them from the trap.

Thereafter, there was no foolish and furious Banzai by which the j.a.panese enemy customarily bled itself to death. Biak was a grinding, shot-for-shot battle. Ambush, or delay, was repeated at Peleliu and Iwo Jima, battles that the U.S. Marines expected to be won within days or a week or so but lasted for months, with staggering losses not only in valuable time but in still more valuable life and equipment.

These were the tactics that Lieutenant General Mitsuru Us.h.i.+jima intended to employ on Okinawa with his defending j.a.panese Thirty-second Army. After his arrival there in August 1944, he hurled himself into the gratifying task of turning that slender long island into an ocean fortress. In January 1945, he sent his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Isamu Cho, to Tokyo for a review of his defenses. Imperial Headquarters planners were delighted with his preparations, for they dovetailed with Ten-Go. Ten-Go. Us.h.i.+jima's monster ambush was just the tactic to lure the Americans within range of the suiciders-airborne and seaborne-to be smashed so shatteringly that the Thirty-second Army could take the offensive and destroy them. Us.h.i.+jima's monster ambush was just the tactic to lure the Americans within range of the suiciders-airborne and seaborne-to be smashed so shatteringly that the Thirty-second Army could take the offensive and destroy them.

Upon his return to Okinawa, Isamu Cho was a happy soldier, thirsting for battle and bursting to tell his chief the good news about j.a.pan's devastating new weapon of the Divine Wind.

The j.a.panese Samurai Samurai

CHAPTER FOUR.

To understand the Samurai Samurai-a hereditary cla.s.s of professional warriors peculiar to j.a.pan-it is necessary to understand the history of Nippon. Up until 1853, when the American Commodore Matthew Perry opened j.a.pan to world trade, Nippon had been a hermit kingdom into which no foreigner who valued his life would venture. True, between the founding of the Island Empire in 660 B.C. and the arrival of Perry, there had been a brief interlude of intercourse with the West. This occurred after a storm drove a China-bound Portuguese s.h.i.+p ash.o.r.e in 1543. Later s.h.i.+ps brought Catholic missionaries, among them Saint Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary and a leader of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, who stepped ash.o.r.e in 1549. Under his influence the population of a large area of the southern island of Kyushu became Catholic Christians. This pleased neither the ruling shoguns (military commanders in chief who had seized power from the emperor) or the Buddhist priests.

The shoguns quite understandably suspected that the Catholic missionaries might actually be advance scouts or spies for the colonizing Catholic powers of Europe. They remembered that after Spanish priests came to the Philippines with Ferdinand Magellan, they were followed by Spanish soldiers who made those islands the possessions of the king of Spain. An uprising of Kyushu Christians was put down with ferocious severity, and in 1617 a persecution of Christians was begun. All Christians, whether foreign or j.a.panese-Protestant or Catholic-were hunted down ruthlessly, and those who did not recant under torture were executed.

Thereafter j.a.pan sank back into isolation. No one could leave the country under pain of death, and no foreigner enter under the same grim penalty. Nor were oceangoing s.h.i.+ps allowed to be built. Every j.a.panese family was required to register at a Buddhist temple, and interest in Buddhist studies was encouraged. s.h.i.+nto, the naive nature-and-ancestor wors.h.i.+p of ancient j.a.pan, was also revived. s.h.i.+nto, a Chinese word (significant of Chinese influence on j.a.panese culture), was based on a simple feeling of reverence for any surprising or awesome phenomenon of nature: a waterfall, a splendid cloud formation, a mountain, a magnificent tree, or even an oddly shaped stone. Places that stimulated such delight or awe became s.h.i.+nto shrines. At the head of this basically shamanist religion stood a master medicine man: the divine emperor.

j.a.panese tradition claimed that the imperial family was directly descended from the sun G.o.ddess. Actually, this family issued from the Yamato clan, which claimed the sun G.o.ddess as its progenitor. During the third and fourth centuries the Yamato clan's priest-chiefs gained suzerainty and may be said to have unified the country, although without destroying the rights of the other clans. This ruling family, then, could claim an antiquity with which none of the other reigning families of the world could compare. It also could claim the allegiance of its subjects unto death itself. To fail or embarra.s.s the emperor was a heinous, unforgivable crime for which there could be no penance or expiation other than self-destruction. This belief in the divinity of the emperor was cleverly and cynically exploited by the shoguns, who ruled the country through the emperor as figurehead.

The shoguns came to power after the imperial armies in the eighth century suffered setbacks at the hands of j.a.pan's original inhabitants, the Ainu-an extremely hairy race thereafter exiled to the inhospitable North by the heartless and frequently hairless j.a.panese, and called in contempt "the hairy Ainu." Scorning the imperial conscripts, the shoguns formed their own smaller but better trained and disciplined armies. These were commanded by a new cla.s.s of officers drawn from the sons of local clan chiefs and called Samurai. Samurai. They formed this new hereditary cla.s.s of professional warriors serving the They formed this new hereditary cla.s.s of professional warriors serving the daimyos, daimyos, or feudal lords. or feudal lords.

The Samurai Samurai were distinguished by their hair, shaven in front and top-knotted, and the clan badge worn on their kimonos. They lived Spartan lives and were rigidly drilled-from childhood to manhood-in self-control: a were distinguished by their hair, shaven in front and top-knotted, and the clan badge worn on their kimonos. They lived Spartan lives and were rigidly drilled-from childhood to manhood-in self-control: a Samurai Samurai was taught to show "no joy or anger." Nor was he ever to engage in trade or handle money. Like Christian seminarians, he had contempt for commerce as being was taught to show "no joy or anger." Nor was he ever to engage in trade or handle money. Like Christian seminarians, he had contempt for commerce as being infra dignitatem, infra dignitatem, beneath his dignity. He was also trained to excel in the martial arts. Indeed the two swords worn by the beneath his dignity. He was also trained to excel in the martial arts. Indeed the two swords worn by the Samurai Samurai-one long and one short-were also badges of rank. Samurai Samurai were expected to become especially proficient with the long, two-handed sword, actually a thick, heavy, single-edged, and extremely sharp saber. The short one was for decapitating a fallen enemy or dispatching himself by were expected to become especially proficient with the long, two-handed sword, actually a thick, heavy, single-edged, and extremely sharp saber. The short one was for decapitating a fallen enemy or dispatching himself by seppuku, seppuku, more commonly known as more commonly known as hara-kiri, hara-kiri, literally, "stomach cutting." To kill himself in atonement for failure or disgrace, a literally, "stomach cutting." To kill himself in atonement for failure or disgrace, a Samurai Samurai would squat on the floor and thrust his short sword into his stomach-turning it in a ceremonial disembowelment that, if it became unbearably painful, could be ended by a comrade standing by to strike his neck with a saber, severing the spinal column. would squat on the floor and thrust his short sword into his stomach-turning it in a ceremonial disembowelment that, if it became unbearably painful, could be ended by a comrade standing by to strike his neck with a saber, severing the spinal column.

A lifetime of cultivating indifference to pain, however, was part of a Samurai Samurai's code of Bus.h.i.+do: Bus.h.i.+do: "the way of the warrior." With this inevitably arrogant warrior cla.s.s, permitted to cut down any commoner "who has behaved to him in a manner other than he expected," the shoguns ruled j.a.pan. And their reign continued for more than two centuries after the extinction of Christianity. It ended only when Commodore Perry appeared in his steam-driven "black s.h.i.+ps," so terrifying to the insular j.a.panese when they saw these vessels without sails moving easily against the wind on Tokyo Bay. Very quickly a treaty opening two ports to the Americans was signed. "the way of the warrior." With this inevitably arrogant warrior cla.s.s, permitted to cut down any commoner "who has behaved to him in a manner other than he expected," the shoguns ruled j.a.pan. And their reign continued for more than two centuries after the extinction of Christianity. It ended only when Commodore Perry appeared in his steam-driven "black s.h.i.+ps," so terrifying to the insular j.a.panese when they saw these vessels without sails moving easily against the wind on Tokyo Bay. Very quickly a treaty opening two ports to the Americans was signed.

This unprecedented deference (not to say obeisance) to a foreign power so enraged conservatives of all callings-the merchants, daimyos, daimyos, the the Samurai Samurai-that it provoked a revolution known as the Meiji Restoration ending the power of the shoguns and restoring it to the emperor. It also culminated the career of the Samurai. Samurai. No ruler could feel entirely safe with such dangerous zealots at large within his borders, and so by imperial edict these fierce warriors accepted the lump-sum termination offered them to hang up their swords and become merchants, lawyers, doctors, or bureaucrats. But they did not remain long suppressed, for the Meiji Restoration, in perhaps the most astonis.h.i.+ng national turnabout in history, had embraced in one swoop the entire apparatus of the once-despised Western civilization. Everything invented or developed by the "Round Eyes" since Greece, Rome, and the advent of the Christian Era-their science, industry, culture, political inst.i.tutions, methods of education, business practices, economics, dress, and even sports-was swallowed whole by Nippon. No ruler could feel entirely safe with such dangerous zealots at large within his borders, and so by imperial edict these fierce warriors accepted the lump-sum termination offered them to hang up their swords and become merchants, lawyers, doctors, or bureaucrats. But they did not remain long suppressed, for the Meiji Restoration, in perhaps the most astonis.h.i.+ng national turnabout in history, had embraced in one swoop the entire apparatus of the once-despised Western civilization. Everything invented or developed by the "Round Eyes" since Greece, Rome, and the advent of the Christian Era-their science, industry, culture, political inst.i.tutions, methods of education, business practices, economics, dress, and even sports-was swallowed whole by Nippon.

Despite the undoubted exuberance of this nonviolent social revolution (sometimes comical to a Westerner at first sight of a smaller j.a.panese going to his daily workplace in a tuxedo hanging on him like a scarecrow's suit and a top hat reaching down to his ears), the change was outward only; j.a.pan, for all of its pretensions to democracy, remained a paternalistic, authoritarian state. The secret police organized in the 1600s may have been banned, but the new j.a.pan replaced them with Thought Police, censors and spies sniffing out sedition and "suspicious" activity like tireless bloodhounds, and empowered like the Samurai Samurai of old to put to death anyone caught doing "anything different." In cla.s.srooms and army barracks young j.a.panese were taught to glory in Nippon's military traditions, to believe that dying on the battlefield for the emperor was the most sublime fate to which a man could aspire. of old to put to death anyone caught doing "anything different." In cla.s.srooms and army barracks young j.a.panese were taught to glory in Nippon's military traditions, to believe that dying on the battlefield for the emperor was the most sublime fate to which a man could aspire.

Inevitably the spirit of the Samurai Samurai returned and their code of returned and their code of Bus.h.i.+do Bus.h.i.+do was revived. Soldiers of a mainly peasant army, both officers and men, were trained in the hard, selfless was revived. Soldiers of a mainly peasant army, both officers and men, were trained in the hard, selfless Samurai Samurai school, taught to think of themselves as heirs of that departed warrior cla.s.s. Officers adopted a so-called school, taught to think of themselves as heirs of that departed warrior cla.s.s. Officers adopted a so-called Samurai Samurai saber, much like the two-handed long sword of old, as their badge of rank. Properly sharpened and even though wielded by diminutive j.a.panese, it could sever a prisoner's head at a single stroke, and this summary execution of captives-usually after they had been tortured for information-became one of the least gruesome features of j.a.pan's new, saber, much like the two-handed long sword of old, as their badge of rank. Properly sharpened and even though wielded by diminutive j.a.panese, it could sever a prisoner's head at a single stroke, and this summary execution of captives-usually after they had been tortured for information-became one of the least gruesome features of j.a.pan's new, Samurai Samurai-led army as it took the field in pursuit of territorial conquest and the raw materials and markets in which Nippon, for a modern industrial nation, was so deplorably deficient. Eventually the chief officers among them emerged as the War Lords of j.a.pan. In collusion with the zaibatsu zaibatsu-leading politicians, bureaucrats, and industrialists such as the Mitsubis.h.i.+ and Mitsui families-the War Lords ruled the country through the figurehead of Hirohito.

This career of territorial aggrandizement by an authoritarian coalition began in 1879 with Nippon's annexation of the Ryukyu Islands, of which Okinawa was the largest. Sixty-six years later three typical Samurai Samurai took charge of defending this last barrier between American armed forces and the Home Islands of j.a.pan. took charge of defending this last barrier between American armed forces and the Home Islands of j.a.pan.

Lieutenant General Mitsuru Us.h.i.+jima-commander of the j.a.panese Thirty-second Army-may be said to have been the Samurai Samurai beau ideal. Ramrod-straight and lean, sharp-featured with a graying military brush mustache, he was able to awe subordinates by his unshakable composure and iron self-control. Yet he was a considerate man whose staff not only respected but even revered him. Us.h.i.+jima's style was low-key. He abstained from the rough-and-tumble of staff discussions of policy, plans, or operations; in which, as had happened during the Guadalca.n.a.l disaster, irate officers could actually come to blows. Rather, he let his aides make the decisions, which he would either approve or reject. But he always took responsibility for the results, good or bad. In their unreserved admiration of him, his idolizing staff compared him to Takamori Saigo, a celebrated hero of the Meiji Restoration. beau ideal. Ramrod-straight and lean, sharp-featured with a graying military brush mustache, he was able to awe subordinates by his unshakable composure and iron self-control. Yet he was a considerate man whose staff not only respected but even revered him. Us.h.i.+jima's style was low-key. He abstained from the rough-and-tumble of staff discussions of policy, plans, or operations; in which, as had happened during the Guadalca.n.a.l disaster, irate officers could actually come to blows. Rather, he let his aides make the decisions, which he would either approve or reject. But he always took responsibility for the results, good or bad. In their unreserved admiration of him, his idolizing staff compared him to Takamori Saigo, a celebrated hero of the Meiji Restoration.

Early in the war Us.h.i.+jima had distinguished himself as an infantry group commander during the conquest of Burma. There he met Isamu Cho, chief of staff of the Southern Army. They returned to Tokyo together, Us.h.i.+jima to become commandant of the j.a.panese Military Academy, Cho to serve on the General Military Affairs Bureau. They also came to Okinawa together, Us.h.i.+jima as the Thirty-second's chief, Cho as his chief of staff-and no two men could differ more in character.

Us.h.i.+jima the serene was a man of presence, capable of inspiring his subordinates. He also possessed the rare gift of seeing his own incapacities, which he filled by choosing Major General Cho, a firebrand and a planner and organizer, strict but resourceful, aggressive, and so invincibly explosive in argument as to be unpopular. Deceptively scholarly-looking with thick wide spectacles that exaggerated his owlish features, he was actually-in contrast to the Spartan, abstemious Us.h.i.+jima-a bon vivant. In his quarters, even toward the end of the battle for Okinawa, might be found unrivaled meals, the best Scotch whiskey, the finest sake, sake, and the prettiest women. The burly Cho was also something of a bully, and the young officers who served him resented his hectoring tirades, even though they admitted that he could make them work harder than any other officer. and the prettiest women. The burly Cho was also something of a bully, and the young officers who served him resented his hectoring tirades, even though they admitted that he could make them work harder than any other officer.

Isamu Cho had risen at fifty-one to the rank of lieutenant general and was in line for another star. In 1930, while a captain, he had joined the Sakura-kai Sakura-kai, or "Cherry Society," whose hundred-odd members-all firebrands like Cho-were sworn to cleanse j.a.pan of all Western influences that they considered inimical to the ancient virtues of the Samurai. Samurai. Antidemocratic and anticapitalist, they sought to establish a military dictators.h.i.+p and had chosen the cherry tree as their emblem because its brilliant though short-lived blossoms symbolized the warrior Antidemocratic and anticapitalist, they sought to establish a military dictators.h.i.+p and had chosen the cherry tree as their emblem because its brilliant though short-lived blossoms symbolized the warrior Samurai Samurai's readiness to die for the emperor at any moment.

A few generals eager to wear the dictatorial mantle courted the Cherry favor, and thus contributed to the society's increasing influence and to Cho's emergence as the leading hothead and strong-arm advocate. In January 1931, he helped plot a conspiracy to murder the prime minister and replace him with a leading general, but that distinguished officer declined to accept the honor, since he seems to have expected to gain that eminence by legal means. In October the Cherries tried again, with Cho once more the leader. The plan was to have revolutionaries fly over Tokyo to bomb selected targets, chief among them the prime minister's residence. With him dead, Emperor Hirohito could be compelled to choose a general as his successor. However, Cho's very exuberance foiled the plot. At one of the meetings, held in a geisha house in Tokyo's red-light district, he declared that the conspiracy must succeed "even if it is necessary to threaten the emperor with a drawn dagger." To one Cherry member this was treasonous talk indeed, and after he blew the whistle, j.a.panese military police raided a geisha house to arrest the ringleaders-Cho not included-and put an end to the notorious plot of "the Brocade Banner."

In any other army Cho's activity would at least have led to his being court-martialed or even executed, but instead of being punished he was rewarded with a coveted a.s.signment to the Kwantung Army, then engaged in ripping the province of Manchuria from the flabby big body of the Chinese giant. Nor was the public as outraged as it might have been by the Brocade Banner affair, for in those days a man who excused his misdeeds by wrapping himself in the flag of patriotism was forgiven almost anything. Gradually, however, as the militarists tightened their hold on j.a.pan, any kind of opposition to the status quo, no matter how supposedly patriotic, was not so conveniently ignored.

Nevertheless Cho did not-could not-restrain himself. In 1938 he nearly provoked a war between j.a.pan and the Soviet Union when he and another officer ordered an unauthorized attack on Russian forces just over the Manchurian border. Three years later, as chief of staff of the army that had seized Thailand, he seems to have encouraged hostilities between Thai and Vichy French troops. Yet, he remained in the high command's mystifyingly good graces, much to the dismay of generals senior to him who also sought the Okinawa a.s.signment. Perhaps Imperial Headquarters believed that Cho's very excess of zeal could now be helpful rather than detrimental to the army. If the fires burning in his breast could rekindle the ardor of the soldiers on Okinawa, then another kind of kamikaze kamikaze might yet overwhelm superior American firepower and save j.a.pan. might yet overwhelm superior American firepower and save j.a.pan.

Such a possibility might indeed have inhabited the minds of these mystical j.a.panese generals and admirals, men who actually did believe that the soul of a Samurai Samurai killed fighting for the emperor would dwell eternally in Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo. But from the standpoint of reality, a more hopeful savior than either the traditionalist Us.h.i.+jima or the fiery Cho existed in the person of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, chief planning officer of the Thirty-second Army. killed fighting for the emperor would dwell eternally in Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo. But from the standpoint of reality, a more hopeful savior than either the traditionalist Us.h.i.+jima or the fiery Cho existed in the person of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, chief planning officer of the Thirty-second Army.

At forty-two Yahara was much younger than either Us.h.i.+jima or Cho, although his record was almost as impressive. Graduated from the j.a.panese Military Academy in the cla.s.s of 1923, Yahara had served in an infantry regiment, had attended the j.a.panese War College and spent ten months at Fort Moultrie in the United States as an exchange officer. He had also served with distinction during fighting in China, Thailand, Malaya, and Burma. Tall for a j.a.panese, poised, patrician, an intellectual, there was about him a kind of superciliousness-probably born of his contempt for those advocates of bamboo-spear tactics-that alienated many of his comrades. Especially Cho. Indeed, Cho and Yahara were as ant.i.thetical as two men could be. Where Cho was impetuous, Yahara was deliberate; where Cho was physical and aggressive, Yahara was thoughtful and careful; and where Cho was all heart, Yahara was all head. To Yahara war was not a contest but a science, to be won by superior tactics adjusted to terrain, weapons, and troops, not by those wretchedly b.l.o.o.d.y Banzai charges. In this intellectualism and the aloofness issuing from it, and in his unconcealed contempt for others who did not share his ac.u.men, he again offended fellow officers on Us.h.i.+jima's staff.

Nevertheless Hiromichi Yahara's rationalism was the perfect complement to Us.h.i.+jima's magnetism and Cho's fire, thus conferring on the Thirty-second Army a superb leaders.h.i.+p, which-now devoted to the new tactic of defense in depth to be executed on the most compatible terrain imaginable-did not presage a quick and easy victory for the American invaders. This trio's intention to give up no ground willingly and to whittle and weary the enemy was reflected in the Thirty-second Army's slogan composed by Us.h.i.+jima: One Plane for One Wars.h.i.+p One Boat for One s.h.i.+p One Man for Ten of the Enemy or One Tank Fulfillment of the first slogan was up to the kamikaze, kamikaze, for General Us.h.i.+jima had little airpower based on Okinawa's five airfields. for General Us.h.i.+jima had little airpower based on Okinawa's five airfields.

"One Boat for One s.h.i.+p" would be the objective by nautical Divine Winds of the Sea Raiding Squadrons. They were enlisted youths fresh out of high school, trained to ram explosive-stuffed motorboats into American s.h.i.+ps. There were about 700 suicide boats hidden in the Ryukyus, and approximately 350 were only about fifteen miles west of southern Okinawa in the islets of the Kerama-retto.

The third stricture was left to a force of about one hundred thousand men, of whom a fifth were conscripted from the Okinawan population. The bulk of these troops was concentrated in Okinawa's southern third.

Here Us.h.i.+jima began to build a line facing north like a broad arrowhead. Its point rested on the heights surrounding Shuri and Shuri Castle, the city and citadel of Okinawa's ancient kings. Its flanks swept back to the sea on either side, through a jungle of ridges to the chief city of Naha on the left (to the west), through similar hills back to Yonabaru Airfield on the right. It was the Naha-Shuri-Yonabaru line. It held the bulk of Us.h.i.+jima's fighting men-the Sixty-second Division, which had served in China, the Twenty-fourth Division, and the Forty-fourth Independent Mixed Brigade. To its left, on Oroku Peninsula jutting into the sea west of Naha, were about thirty-five hundred j.a.panese sailors and seven thousand j.a.panese civilians under Vice Admiral Minoru Ota. Roughly three thousand soldiers of the Second Infantry Unit u